Changing the type of brackets

Question

I have a document containing these types of strings:

C(A,B)

C(D,E)

C(D,
E)

I am trying to replace every occurence of C(...) with \SC{...}, changing the C in front of the bracket and the brackets themselves. The brackets can span multiple lines. How can this be done?

Edit: The document contained other types of brackets as well. They should not be replaced.

My idea would be to iterate through occurences, and use the method described here to replace the brackets.

Answer 1

Based on the wording of your question, it seems like I can assume that A, B, D, and E are not expressions that themselves contain parantheses. Based on the comments, it might not be assumed. I therefore provide two answer.

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If there are not nested parantheses, then the following regular expression should work:

:%s/C(\(\_[^)]\+\))/\\SC{\1}/g

Here \_ allows the following atom to match across line boundaries, see :h \_.

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If there are nested parantheses, the substitution becomes very hard to do with a regular expression (at least in general). In this case, I would rather use a macro:

1. Put the cursor on a C, then start recording with qa.
2. Do: s\SC<esc> to replace C with \SC.
3. Do: l%r} to replace the last ) with }.
4. Do: <c-o>r{ to replace the first ( with {.
5. Search for next occurance: /C(
6. Stop recording: q.

Now you may repeat the substitution with @a and then @@ for the consecutive occurances.

Note: Here <esc> is the literal escape character and <c-o> is Ctrl+o.